


Cloaks

by BranwellBronte



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Blood, Blow Job, Castle Black, Complicated Relationships, Fighting, Freedom, Hand Job, Identity, M/M, Queer Themes, Surgery, The Night's Watch (ASoIaF), complicated love, m/m friendships, minor gore, queer friendships, the wall - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 19:35:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14900675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BranwellBronte/pseuds/BranwellBronte
Summary: When Mance Rayder chose the wildlings over the Watch, and Lord Commander Jeor Mormont loved him anyway.





	Cloaks

            “Bite down on it.”

            “No.”

            “You will bite down on it without me telling you again, or I’ll put it between your teeth and hold your mouth shut with my own hand. You. Put it in his teeth. Now.” Jeor snapped his fingers at the boy standing near Qhorin’s face. The boy hesitated as Qhorin gave Jeor a viciously silent stare that would have crumpled him a year or two ago. They’d given Qhorin herbs in a tea to ease the excruciating pain he was about to experience, but the herbs seemed to have no effect on his godsforsaken attitude. Jeor cursed him in his head and snapped his fingers next to boy’s ear. “I said _Now.”_

The boy cringed slightly but carefully pried Qhorin’s jaws apart and placed the bit inside. He stared terrified and goggle-eyed at Qhorin the whole time, as if Qhorin really would disobey Jeor, or bite the boy’s fingers instead. Qhorin kept his eyes burning heat into Jeor’s until the boy working as the surgeon picked up the saw. Then he looked up at the ceiling and Jeor saw his teeth close ever so slightly around the bit.

            “Ready, sir? Give me a blink when you’re ready.” The boy with the saw licked his lips nervously. _I’ll do it if none of you will,_ Jeor had told the boys and men with assorted medical talents that he’d gathered outside the door five minutes before, _so one of you better well volunteer so you’re not all put to shame that only the Lord Commander had the stomach._ The boy who now held the saw had raised his hand and Jeor hadn’t let his relief tinge his eyes as he’d directed him inside.

            Benjen knelt beside the table Qhorin was lying on. “Here. Grab onto me instead of the table edge if you need to. Last thing your other hand needs is a splinter.”

            Qhorin shakily put his left hand on Benjen’s gloved hand and swallowed, the motion almost imperceptible. Jeor pursed his lips. He didn’t know what it was about Benjen Stark that Qhorin had such a soft spot for. He knew Benjen was the only man Qhorin wouldn’t have hissed at over the suggestion that Qhorin take someone’s hand.

            Qhorin turned to the boy with the saw and stared at him, the fire in his eyes slowly dimming. Then he rekindled the flames, jerked his head to the bloody mess that was his right hand, and gave a quick blink before glaring at the ceiling. The boy nodded in determination and placed the saw over the irreparably broken finger the wildling axe had failed to completely sever. “Watch him cut it,” Jeor said to the boy who’d held the bit. “I’ll know if you don’t.”

            The boy nodded quickly and Jeor kept the side of his eyes on him more than he would ever have admitted as the boy-surgeon did his work. The boy’s eyes wavered and shone but he didn’t look away as Qhorin’s eyes squeezed so tightly shut that wrinkles lined his entire face. The bit wobbled in his mouth as he repeatedly bit down on it. He made no sound but a constant stream of tears ran steadily down his cheeks. His left hand was reflexively gripping and releasing and gripping Benjen’s glove. Benjen had moved in closer to Qhorin’s face and was softly speaking near his ear. Jeor really shouldn’t have allowed it. Benjen wasn’t _really_ necessary in this room right now. Qhorin could have held onto the boy who’d held the bits hand instead. But Benjen had followed Jeor into the room as smoothly as if a ribbon had been attached to him and Qhorin, who had been walked carefully but quickly in by Jeor and the two boys. Jeor hadn’t even noticed Benjen until he was suddenly helping the three of them lower Qhorin onto the table.

            The work was over in less than half a minute, the boy-surgeon wrapping layers of cloth around Qhorin’s ruined right hand as the boy who’d had the bit quietly wrapped the removed finger in a different cloth. He held it awkwardly and looked to Jeor. “My Lor-” he started.

            “Leave it on the side table. You can go. Help the others clean weapons if they haven’t finished yet.”

            The boy didn’t run out the door so as not to shame himself, but his movements were swift. He was probably going to be ill. Jeor intentionally watched every surgery that took place at Castle Black so as to numb his own stomach and nerves. He’d thrown up as a child after scraping a knee bloody and raw when he fell on some rocks at the beach on Bear Island. He’d nearly been ill again when a very young Jorah had come home in his mother’s arms wailing when the first inevitable fall and scrape happened to him. But those were memories he’d tamped down so hard that they almost seemed like someone else’s now.  

            Almost.

            The boy with the saw had finished wrapping up Qhorin’s hand. Qhorin’s entire arm and most of his chest were soaked heavily with blood. Jeor wondered how much wildling blood was layered in with Qhorin’s own. The whole table looked like they’d butchered a grown man on it. He didn’t envy the boy he’d eventually order to scrub it clean. If it even could be cleaned.

Qhorin’s eyes were open now, muddled and sopping with tears, but he stared silently and fixatedly at the ceiling. Without the tears, he might have been any man taking a quiet rest but for his left hand still trembling inside Benjen’s grip. Disgusted frustration curdled in Jeor’s stomach at the sight of the two of them, Benjen’s calming presence on Qhorin irritating him to the point of clenching his own fist. He flicked his eyes at the boy to distract himself. “You’re relieved of watch duty for a week. Go change your clothes.”

            “My Lord.”

When the door was shut again, he had no place to look but at Benjen, who met his eyes and held them. _I’m here. What of it?_ Jeor imagined him saying. But Benjen Stark never said a word out of place, never ran his mouth, never did anything without it being damn perfect. He kept his eyes calmly on Jeor’s as Qhorin’s eyes finally closed and his hand fell out of Benjen’s, dangling over the table edge. Jeor broke their gaze first, cursing Benjen internally, cursing himself before he could help it. “Watch him,” he said as Benjen gently lifted Qhorin’s arm back on the table and fixed the angle of the pillow under his head. “I’ll be back later. You had better still be here.” Spinning Benjen’s voluntary presence into an order was small comfort to him but it would have to do.

Benjen nodded. “My Lord. I’ll be here.”

“Fine.” Jeor turned on his heel and had to slow himself before he shut the door harder than he’d been about to do. He put as much distance between himself and the room as possible. The heat and bloody smell of it dissipated the further away he walked, the cool and then cold air sealing him into its eternal presence as he reached the end of an outdoor stairway. He hailed the man just down from the carriage from the top of the Wall. “What news?”

“My Lord. There’s been no sighting of the three missing rangers.”

“The three that include Mance Rayder, correct?”

“Yes my Lord. No sign of any of them.”

“Take an hour’s break. I’ll send someone else up to join the watch party.” Jeor walked past him before he could hear the “my Lord.” He had had no intention of ordering another man up but he had to speak _something_ before the twitch in his face showed, the twitch that plagued him every time Mance was out of the Castle.

Nevermind _missing_.

He ascended the same set of steps he’s just walked down, the action suddenly seeming stupid. He put more steel into his posture to compensate as he walked into the mess room where the returned rangers were still recovering their breaths as they cleaned their weapons, the smell of their leather clothes damp with blood and sweat staining the air. “Men,” he said as he entered and the “my Lord” chorus went up. “Don’t stand up. You’ve earned your rest. The captains tell me you took out nearly the whole party. You’ve done your duty well.”

Various “it was only my duty”s went up from them. It was taking an effort for them to look at him, ragged breaths still exiting their mouths and noses. He recognized several of them as being the ones who’d first carried Qhorin through the gate, shouting for a surgeon. He gave them each a look in turn. “You moved quickly with him. Well done. Yes, we’ve removed the finger and he’s resting,” he said as one of them started to raise a hand. “Think only of recovering your own strength. You’re all relieved of watch duty until I command otherwise. You’ve all permission to leave and change your clothes.”

“Thank you”s streamed towards him. He was turning to leave when one of the young rangers who’d carried Qhorin rose quickly from his seat. “My Lord.”

“Yes?”

“May I speak to you in private, my Lord? It’s about…someone. Someone important.”

Someone important. Qhorin? “Come.”

The ranger followed Jeor back to his study, where his steward was lighting a candle. Jeor glanced at the window. The dark clouds that had been banked in the sky earlier were multiplying. Between the time the rangers had come back and now, it had somehow turned into dusk as well. He dismissed the steward and sat behind his desk. “Sit down. What do you have to tell me?”

The ranger cleared his throat and gestured vaguely back the way they’d come. “The other men, my Lord. Don’t be angry with them that don’t tell you what I’m about to. Please. I don’t know which ones saw what I saw so I don’t have names for you.”

Jeor watched him, annoyance already rubbing against his nerves. “Again. What have you to tell me?”

The ranger gestured his other hand this time. “It’s like this, my Lord. Mance Rayder. There’s something ought you to know about what he did.”

Jeor kept his eyebrows from raising with all his stamina. _No_. “Yes? To the point, lad.”

“Right. My Lord. See, I only been here not only a year but I feel like I know something not right when I see it. The man, Mance Rayder. I’d just cut a wildling deep enough in the throat for him to be on his knees and I finish him off and I look over his head. And Mance, he’s battling away with this giant man, this really tall bastard, Mance has almost got him, got his sword at his throat. And the big man, he had red hair and a red beard, he says something to Mance, I can’t hear what it is. But whatever it was, it was dangerous, my Lord.”

Jeor quashed a stab of panic and resisted telling the boy to cut even closer to the point, none of this “the man had red hair” business. “Why was it dangerous?”

The boy almost seemed excited, like he was relishing getting to the crux of the story. Jeor grudgingly understood. Not here even a year but he’d justified a private meeting with the Lord Commander. “Because Mance, he did something awful strange, my Lord. Something I know he shouldn’t have done.”

“Yes?” Jeor suppressed the earnest note he felt rising in his voice, forcefully tamping down the note of dread that accompanied it. All of his stamina was barely helping him.

The boy gestured both hands this time, a smile nearly breaking over his mouth. “It was like this, my Lord. Mance, after the red haired bastard done spoke, Mance _lowered_ his sword from his throat. I know not if he meant to do that, what being so well trained as all us know he is, but he did _lower_ it. And that’s when the man with the axe got behind that man Qhorin and got his hand so damaged up and Mance was fighting the new man off and someone else was fighting the red bastard and I can’t remember no more. But Mance, he lowered his sword, my Lord. I saw it.”

Jeor continued looking evenly but his mind blanked for a second. When it returned, it took him back to a moment in bed with Mance. _What if it’s true?_ Mance had leaned up on both elbows and faced him.

Jeor had shrugged even as he rolled to see Mance’s face by candle light, before Mance had to leave before the timing of his departure was suspicious. _What does it matter? It matters not a damn. You’re a sworn brother. You have no other life._

_Wouldn’t you want to know if it were you?_

_No._

_I don’t believe you._

_You don’t have to. Enough with this. Come here again._

Anxiety clenched in Jeor’s stomach and for a moment he said nothing, his insides giving a painful twist before they simmered down and put a low heat through him. He imagined himself actually giving off steam, then banished the thought. _Focus._

He spoke thickly through the heat. “You swear by this?”

The boy sat back, spreading his feet apart, satisfied with his tale-telling. “I do, my Lord. On my oath.”

“That’s a quite a story, for you to swear your oath on.”

“I promise, my Lord. I needed you to know. When something don’t look right, you’re the first person who’s got to know.”

“You’re correct. You won’t speak of this to anyone but me by pain of very serious punishment. Is that clear?”

“Clear as water, my Lord.” The boy sat forward again, an eagerness buzzing about him. Jeor almost scoffed. _He thinks he’s better than the others because he supposedly saw something. He wants a reward._

He wouldn’t get one. “We are done here, then. You’re dismissed.”

The boy froze for a moment, disappointment shading his face. Then he swallowed and stood. “My Lord.”

When he was gone, Jeor’s steward returned. Jeor glanced at him without looking in his eyes. “I’m going to the room Qhorin is in. Keep the candle lit. I’m coming back after.”

He didn’t knock before opening the door to the makeshift surgery room. His first view upon opening it was Benjen holding Qhorin’s left hand in both of his own and Qhorin’s face looking thoughtful. Looking almost as if he were going to smile.

The moment shattered as Jeor’s boots echoed across the floor towards the table. Benjen laid Qhorin’s good hand back on the tabletop and Qhorin turned his head slowly, looked Jeor up and down, and turned away again. Jeor wanted to write him up for insolence aimed at the Lord Commander but he’d be judged too hard for it to be worth it, punishing a man who’d sacrificed so much flesh in battle. “You’re to be moved to a proper room, Qhorin. Did the boy check the wound?”

“He said it was too soon,” Benjen said. “He’ll check it tonight.”

 _And_ he _can speak for himself,_ Jeor thought, watching Qhorin, whose eyes were now engaged in their perpetual activity of ceiling gazing.

Jeor flicked his eyes to Benjen. “Go and see that the servants are done cleaning the room. I’ll stay with him until you come back. Then we’ll move him.”

Benjen bowed his head as he stood up. “My Lord.” He walked calmly from the table and out the door, not a hair or a glance out of place.

Qhorin finally turned his head to Jeor once the door shut. “You can dispense with all that, now.”

Jeor was tired to the point of pain in his head but he didn’t give in. “What is ‘all that’?”

“Oh drop it already, would you? Your token respect for me in the presence of everyone else in the room, even if that’s only one other person. It’s soul-deadening, listening to your pretend civility. Just speak to me like you don’t like me, which you don’t, so just speak to me.”

“You’re talking very clearly. I’ll take that as a good sign of your fast recovery.”

Qhorin snorted. “Fine. Don’t drop it. I’m past giving a damn.”

 _I almost voted for him, you know_. Mance tapping his finger in the hollow of Jeor’s throat as they kissed in the official Lord Commander’s bedroom for the first time. _You were so mean to me the other night. “If you don’t vote for me then I’m never getting on my knees for you again.” It’s not nice to tease like that. That’s not the kind of teasing I like._

“You’ll talk to me like I’m Lord Commander,” Jeor said, wishing he had more steel to put into his voice through the curdle of anxiety in his chest. “Even when we’re alone. I’d have you written up if it wouldn’t shock and demoralize the men. You’d only have to kill one of us and then hit me and then you’d have committed every infraction against me this past year. You seem to forget, the men voted for _me_.”

“Oh and you hate that, yes? That one vote in your favor. You don’t even like it. You’re not even proud of it. Because all it might mean is that I looked the wrong way at just one boy one day, just looked at him a little too mean, and so he voted for you instead. We’ll never know.”

“You’re getting very close, right now. Injury or not.”

Qhorin made a dry laughing sound in his chest. His right hand shifted with his laugh and he grimaced sharply through his teeth. To Jeor’s surprise, Qhorin looked at him through the haze of pain on his face.

“It doesn’t matter if today had never happened. You chose this life. I know we’re all supposed to be equals here, in spirit. But no one believes that. I’ve been here since I was sixteen and it’s because my father sent me here because he hated me. You’ve been here three years. I was punished. So were most of our brothers. You left a lordship to be here. No one here understands you the way they understand me. So drop the act and just talk to me naturally. If you even can.”

“Why do you try to provoke me?” Jeor walked closer to the table and pointed to Qhorin’s swaddled hand. “Are you bitter? More bitter than usual?”

“‘More bitter than usual’? Well that was a jibe if I ever knew one. You’re playing your part in this game, too.”

“I’m not bitter about one vote.” Jeor pitched his voice low but it wavered as his nerves frayed and he got down on a knee by the table. “You will never know what I’m bitter about.” The words were out even as he grasped for them to stay inside. _Damn him to all the hells._ The heat inside him flared painfully.

“Won’t I know? Everyone knows about your exile son. But you’re not talking about him, though. You don’t have to tell me what you’re talking about, but I know it’s something else entirely.”

Jeor was still seething in his crouched position when Benjen knocked. Jeor had no choice but to ease himself up so that he didn’t stumble away from the table like a younger, stupider version of himself might have when he was startled.

“The room is clean,” Benjen said softly.

“Good,” Jeor said, again quicker than he meant to. He nodded once to give a pause to the moment. “We’ll move him now.”

***

            Benjen carefully moved his hand on the doorknob of Qhorin’s room, shutting the door almost completely before slowing it and letting the door return to its frame nearly without a sound. He didn’t even sigh as he turned away from it and faced Jeor. “Is there anything else you’d like me to do, my Lord?”

            _Explain to me why he likes you and not me,_ Jeor thought. _You’re from one of the greatest Houses. You’re far more highborn than I am. But you chose to be here too. Why are you special?_

            Qhorin had said nothing as the boys Jeor had enlisted walked him to the room. It was only a few paces down the hall and it wasn’t a real bedroom, but Jeor had spared nothing, having the room washed and dusted, an unused bed brought up from the cellars and clean blankets fitted on it, extra candles laid out on the table. Benjen had cradled Qhorin’s ruined hand in his arm to keep it steady as they’d walked haltingly to the room, Qhorin stopping at intervals and then huffing and then moving again. Jeor remembered trying to walk with his own scraped knee as a small group of men and boys pulled back the bed covers and helped Qhorin onto his back. Jeor had had his mother to wrap a cloth around his leg. _And it hadn’t been severed_ , he thought with grudging sympathy.

 Qhorin had been given more herb tea and had looked dazed as they’d fixed the blankets around him. But he’d glanced at Jeor anyway. Jeor had reflexively glanced back at him even as he’d spoken to the boy assigned to stay in the room for supervision. Qhorin met Jeor’s gaze each time. His eyes weren’t challenging, but they still had a question in them. It only disappeared when Benjen had knelt beside the bed. Qhorin had slowly moved his good hand to one of Benjen’s and given it the smallest squeeze. Benjen had whispered one more thing to Qhorin before rising and following Jeor out of the room. Jeor didn’t feel like he was a petty enough person to want to shut the door loudly on Qhorin, but the pains Benjen took to shut it quietly had exasperated him.

            “You can go to bed. You did very well today.”

            “I appreciate that, my Lord.”

            “Fine. I’ll see you in the morning.” Jeor was back in his study in moments, repositioning the lit candle on his desk, staring at the notes the captains had written up for him. _Twenty-five or more wildlings. About twenty-two of them dead. Three rangers missing. One ranger, Qhorin, severely wounded in his right hand._

Jeor picked up his pen, dipped it in ink, and wrote _Three rangers still missing as of this night_ underneath. He held the pen over the parchment, then put it down, then picked it up again. The heat inside him was pushing his senses off-kilter. _This is a bad idea. I don’t remember the names of the other two._

 _Mance Rayder and two other rangers are the three missing_ , he wrote.

_Put a line through it._

He didn’t.

He threw the pen down and a small splash of ink blotched over the several of the captains’ words. He swore and grabbed the pen and flung it across the room. Then he put his face in his hands and soon they were full of soaking tears like Qhorin’s when he pulled them away.

_***_

            “I’m honored, my Lord, really I-”

            “It’s not meant to be an honor, nor is it one. I’m the Lord Commander but I’m a sworn brother like you. I do my watch like everyone else. Go have your two hours and then come back.”

            The cage rattled him upwards, but his energy was plummeting. He’d woken up at least four times in the night from dreams that felt just a little too real. Mance dead. Mance in bed with him. Mance alone in the snow. Mance bleeding. A ranger appearing again and again. _He’s still missing. We found him. He’s lost part of his hand. There’s still no sign of him. There was a lot of blood but the wound was clean. He would have died instantly. My Lord, he’s back._

He’d given up on sleep after the last dream. Mance had been alive in that one, his hand held out and catching snowflakes. _Been here my whole life but they don’t get less pretty._ He knew that if he fell asleep again, Mance would be dead in the next dream. So he rose with the sun and layered on all of his furs and walked out to where the carriage was sitting at the bottom of the Wall. The sun was weak but spots of the Wall still glimmered. Some of the glimmers had a rainbow shine. They were maybe beautiful on a day that wasn’t this one.

            The boys on watch at the gate hadn’t seemed surprised to see him. A small bit of luck. As he’d relieved one of them, the other had opened and closed the carriage door for him. Jeor had sat on the bench but not given the signal for the cage to rise. He’d been remembering the time he’d managed to schedule Mance to have the same watch as himself. How they’d had to sit on opposite benches but once they were out of sight on the ride up, they’d jumped on each other and kissed desperately for the whole minute it took for the carriage to reach the top. By the time the door was opened for them by the men they’d been relieving, they were back on their opposite benches.

            And so he’d stared evenly at the boy who had poked his head near the bars and said, “My Lord? Are…are you ready for the lift? Did I miss your signal?”

            “Yes. No, I mean you didn’t miss it. But of course I’m ready.”

            He’d never felt dizzy inside the carriage until today. _I should have drunk a tea for my head. The cook wouldn’t have asked why. Why didn’t I? Stupid. Idiot._

            The wind was picking up and skirling around the bars of the cage when it jerked to the top. He resisted the urge to push back the strands of hair the wind blew uncomfortably near his eyes. _Why do you like my hair so much? It’s so gray now._

Mance’s hand softly running through it. _That’s why I like it. It gives you character._

_What does that even mean?_

_It means you’re beautiful._

He’d not looked at the watch schedule this morning. Benjen Stark opening the carriage door for him made him feel like going right back down and laying on the ground and staying there for a time while men stepped over him as they continued their own lives just as he gave up on his own life ever moving in any direction that had Mance in its path.

            “My Lord. Good morning.”

            “Oh gods.” Jeor pushed his hair back and stomped out of the carriage. He didn’t have the energy to be as calm as Benjen Stark. His stamina was smashed after dream after dream of Mance either in his arms or on the forest floor with his throat cut. “I don’t want to hear it.”

            “My Lord…?”

            “Stop it.”

            “Stop…?”

            “I’m not ‘my Lord’ right now. Talk to me as you would to any other man here. You and Qhorin are close. No doubt he’s told you that I can never not be respectful around people I don’t like. I’m going to prove him wrong. And don’t you _dare_ tell me that it’s alright that I don’t like you,” he almost spat as Benjen had begun to gesture.

            Benjen looked at him with his head slightly turned to one side, lips parted ever so slightly. When he spoke, his voice was almost too low to be heard over the gust of wind that flapped their cloaks around their legs. “I was going to say that Qhorin has never told me anything like that about you.”

            “Has he not? Funny.” Jeor pretended that the horrified squirming in his stomach wasn’t happening as he made his way past Benjen and as close to the edge of the Wall as was safe. In his whole three years here, he’d never broken down the whole of his composure in front of anyone but Mance. For Benjen Stark to be the second person to ever see him crack his entire veneer was infuriating.

But fury took up energy, which he didn’t have. _Damn everything and everyone. I didn’t get enough sleep._

_He’s still not here._

“It’s not so funny as you might think,” Benjen said, boots shuffling forward to stand with about two feet of space between him and Jeor. The trees of the woods in the far distance were being blown sideways by a gust. The snowy plain between the woods and the Wall was smashed around with multiple prints of boots and horse hooves from the day before. He knew he wasn’t really seeing it, but it didn’t take much imagination to impose a dotted line of red where Qhorin’s hand had bled out on the snow near the gate. “He doesn’t talk about you very much, if you can believe that.”

Jeor stared at the trees, feeling genuine shock. “I don’t believe that.”

“It’s the truth.”

“And why you, Benjen? Why are you friends with him when I’m not? How did that happen? You and he are of an age, yes, but I don’t feel like he even gave me a chance.”

“Well, yes, I’ve been here far longer than you and that’s only the truth, so I’ve known him longer.”

“But he was sent here by his father. You came of your own accord. So did I. Why _you_ , then? Why isn't his opinion of me as high?”

Benjen was silent a moment as a sheet of snow kicked up by the wind dusted their legs. Then he said, softly, “He didn’t have much of an opinion one way or another until last year. No one knew you’d be Lord Commander, so I’m not sure anyone did, honestly. But if I’m allowed to be honest…”

“You are.”

“Then you don’t know how hurt he was when you were elected and not him.”

Jeor frowned and shook his head. “You can’t be serious. I _hurt_ Qhorin with that _one vote_? Made him bitter, yes, but _hurt_ him?”

“You didn’t mean to. But he’ll never forgive himself for losing that vote.”

Jeor stared at the snow blowing down the edge of the Wall. “Alright. So we’ve established that he’s hurt because I won and he didn’t. But you, Benjen. Why?”

“He’d have to give you his own reasons. My feeling is that I talk the least of anyone here while still talking just enough and he found that an attractive counterpoint to everyone else. He needed someone to listen to him but also be silent with him. You know how the men all talk. They’re so bored that they talk more than they ever did in their lives before now. But they do it to burn off the boredom. Qhorin’s not bored. His blood runs as fast as pouring rain when he’s agitated and upset and then he crashes and can’t speak. We sit in silence a lot of the time. I think you overestimate how talkative he is with other people. And I was told by my brothers and my sister that I have some calmness about me that puts people at ease. Maybe I was born with it in me. Maybe it’s because the pressure my older siblings suffered didn’t touch me, me being the youngest and the least of everyone’s concern. So my mind was free to flow at a smooth pace. At any rate, I’ve been told I’m easy to around. Told by some people.”

“I see.” Jeor grudgingly admitted to himself the Benjen Stark was completely correct. Wasn’t he asking the other man a string of questions now and eagerly awaiting his responses?

“What does he talk about that agitates him?” _Damn it. Too easy to talk to._

He felt Benjen pause without needing to look at him. Even speaking man to man, it wasn’t honorable to ask a question about a different man like this.

He let the wind cover the sound of the short sigh he allowed himself. “Disregard that. I don’t want to know what he talks about.” The wind died as quickly as it had been born and his next sigh was audible. “No. That’s a lie. Of course I want to know what he talks about, if not about me.”

Benjen crossed his arms behind his back. “I can’t tell you much.”

“I know. Give me something anyway. Why is he bitter? Can you tell me?”

Benjen looked at him and Jeor saw actual pain in his glance. “He’s very unhappy.”

“Are any of us happy?”

“It’s not just because he was sent here at sixteen to live out the rest of his days. It’s because he’s withering inside without something he had to leave behind. And now I know I’ve overstepped.” Benjen tilted his head back and looked skyward.  “He’ll have to tell you the rest.”

Jeor stared at Benjen’s raised-up eyes. Qhorin’s hiss of _I was sixteen_ suddenly jolted his mind into understanding. “He left a lover behind.”

“I can’t say anything.” Benjen lowered his head and grasped his arms closer behind his back.

Jeor chose his words carefully, a strange floating sensation in his mind as he sorted pieces and connected them. “He wasn’t married before, at a younger age?”

“It’s not my place to say.”

“Betrothed?”

“I can’t-”

“Can’t tell me. Alright. I’m done asking questions. We can stare ahead in silence now. I’m sure I don’t match his company but quiet is quiet.”

“As you say.”

_But it’s what people avoid saying that speaks all the truths to you._

_Gods. Qhorin’s like me._ Jeor blessed the wind that covered his sharp intake of breath.

_He’s like me. We both love men._

***

“He just flew in the window, happy as you please. I shooed him but he didn’t even move. I can try to remove him though, of course.”

“No.” Jeor absently twirled his pen as the raven hopped on the desk and rustled its wings. “I don’t mind. He can stay. How do we know it’s a ‘he’?”

“I’m not sure, my Lord.” His steward eyed the bird curiously. “There are female birds obviously but no women at the Wall just as obviously. We just assume every creature is a ‘he,’ maybe.”

“Feed it something, then. It can enjoy itself while it’s here.”

“What should I ask Cook for, my Lord?”

“Anything really. Corn, I suppose. All birds love corn, don’t they?”

“My Lord. Mance Rayder is back.”

Jeor slammed his whole body against his desk in his rise to his feet. Pain from the knock bloomed and splintered in his stomach as he tripped towards the boy who’d opened the door without knocking. “ _Where?_ ”

The boy startled and moved back a pace. Jeor grabbed his shoulders, fingers clawing around them. “I said _Where?_ TELL ME! _”_

The boy immediately started shaking. “I – I – I don’t know. My Lord. Someone just shouted outside that he-.”

Jeor nearly threw the boy to the floor as he shoved him away. He thundered down the hall, the pain in his stomach screaming in protest. He fell against the bannister to the stairs leading into the yard. _Where. Where. Where._ There was a hubbub of men in a circle around a horse. Someone was standing up and soothing it as half of the men suddenly knelt to the ground and gathered more closely around something in the middle of them. Jeor crashed towards them and hauled two of the men away by the sides of their ribs.

The first thing he saw were the red swatches of cloth. They practically shouted, they were so loud against the black of the rest of the cloak fabric. Then he was on his knees and it was only the tiniest shred of energy that had been sighing hopelessly within him that kept him from taking Mance into his arms.

It was a different kind of pain than the physical one in his stomach that screamed when Mance shied from him. Jeor felt a rip in his heart and he lost his breath. This moment was supposed to be a relief but fear was creeping into the rip.

“Mance. _Mance._ All of you. Now.” He snapped a finger at no one in particular. “Make herb tea and prepare a room. _Mance._ ”

Mance’s eyes were open but he was staring at the ground. His stare wasn’t angry like Qhorin’s, but it was adamant. Jeor’s hand darted out without him remembering that he wanted to make the gesture. He grabbed Mance by the chin, wresting his face up. Mance didn’t resist but still didn’t look at him. There was no emotion in his face.

The rip in Jeor’s heart grew more jagged. He could have screeched. The men were hovering and talking too loudly. The one tiny shred of energy that seemed to keep Jeor moving kicked in and he grabbed Mance by the shoulders, hauling him to his feet. The cloak with the red patches slipped off one of his shoulders. Jeor moved to take the fussy thing off of him but Mance’s hand shot up and he caught the cloak before it unraveled around his other shoulder. One it was back in place, he dropped his hand as quickly as he’d raised it. He was still looking at his feet.

            “I’ll help you, my Lord.” A man gently took one of Mance’s arms and started to lead him toward the stairs. Jeor stood in frozen confusion as a second man took Mance’s other arm and then the whole party was streaming up the stairs and Jeor mentally snapped his own fingers at himself and followed, gripping the bannister so hard he thought he’d smash the parts he touched.

            It took him far too long to realize that the men, and not himself, had taken control of the situation. By the time he nearly stumbled back into the castle, Mance was already sitting in a chair in the small room next to Qhorin’s. A man was hurriedly putting new sheets on the bed. A boy was stirring herb tea and then carefully placed the cup into Mance’s hands and a plate of meat on his lap. Several men on either side of Mance’s chair crouched down next to it and all spoke to Mance, gazing at him earnestly, looking like they wanted to touch him. Some of them were staring at his cloak. It was still wrapped tightly around him.

            “He’s uninjured. We just checked him for wounds and he let us touch him all over. He hasn’t moved an inch. He’s traumatized, my Lord.” One of the men had broken from the group and hurried to Mance, his hands spread out before him. “He’s in a real bad way. This isn’t his cloak, obviously. He must have stolen it from one of the wildlings after he got away because-”

            “ _Stop_.” _There is no ‘one of the wildlings’_. _There_ isn’t. “Slow down. He hasn’t said anything out loud yet, correct?”

            “Well, no my Lord, but it’s obvious that-”

            “ _Nothing_ is obvious. If he’s not spoken then we have no idea what happened. MEN!” He shouted and his voice cracked. _Damn it_. He almost sobbed.

            “Men. Leave this room. You, finish, and then you leave too.” He snapped his fingers at the man making the bed. Men with white hair and boys with only recent stubble all broke reluctantly away from the chair and bowed their heads as they shuffled past Jeor and out the door. The man making the bed had finished with the sheets and blankets and was shaking the pillows to fluff them and he shook them so slowly that Jeor wanted to throw a knife past his cheek and into the wall. “ _Thank you,_ ” he projected at the man, not as loud as he hoped and far less even than anyone would think normal.

            The man set down the pillows and bowed and Jeor slammed the door shut behind him and was down on his knees in front of Mance in half a heartbeat. He only felt his tears when they had saturated his beard and he could almost smell the salt. The truth of Mance’s story could wait. No moment but this needed to mark time right now. The tea sloshed out of the cup and onto his hand as he grabbed it from Mance’s fingers and threw the cup aside. He knew a small burn was forming but the only heat he felt, wanted, needed, was that of Mance’s breath close to his face. He reached up and took Mance’s face in his hands, Mance’s dark hair lank against his skin. The tears dripped down his chin. _“You’re back.”_ He hardly even heard his own voice.

            Mance heard it. He smoothly raised his eyes to Jeor’s and held them. His gaze and his voice were even.

“I’m not staying.”

***

            Jeor closed the door nearly all the way and then stopped, slowing it and letting it soundlessly settle into its frame before taking his hand from the knob. Any other day he might have been annoyed at himself for imitating Benjen Stark. Now he found that his shred of energy was desperately, painfully trying to infuse his body with Benjen’s calm.

            The calm blanked out as soon as he turned from the door and laid eyes on Mance, sitting on the edge of the bed. Mance had both hands clutched around his patched cloak, his upper body swaddled so tightly that he looked ready to squeeze the air out of his lungs with the fabric. And willingly.

            _Where did you get that cloak? Did you steal it? Where have you been? Were you captured? Who gave you that horse? How did you make it back here alive?_

            “What did the red haired wildling man say to you.”

            It came out as a statement. He tried to make his voice as devoid of emotion as Mance’s but he knew it was impossible and pointless when tears were still sliding down from his eyes, all the way down to his neck and uncomfortably into his collar.

            Mance raised his eyebrows briefly, but then looked to the side and nodded. “So someone saw us. I had a feeling. I could tell there were eyes on my back even without turning. I’ve always been proud of my instincts. Now more than ever.”

            “What did he _say_.”

            “Something very simple. You’re going to be disappointed. But they’re true words. And I know they are, even if you’ve told me they’re false a thousand times.”

            _Listen to me, Jeor._

_Come here._

_Listen to me first. I think it’s true. The party I helped take out the other day? They looked at me funny, all of them. Yes, all of them, they were a small party but they_ all _looked at me this way. They didn’t know who I was, they’d never seen me before. But I saw something in their eyes, in the eyes of the first one I killed. He looked at me so steadily, not even angry that I was swinging a blade at him. He was almost serene right before I put my sword through him. Like he thought the best death he could have was by one of his own._

_So maybe you looked familiar because there’s someone back in their camp who looks a little like you. It’s not that hard to believe. You have dark hair. A lot of them have dark hair._

_You’re not taking me seriously. This had nothing to do with my looks. It was deeper than that._

_How on earth could you know it was_ deeper _? You were busy killing the man._

_And that’s exactly how I know it was deeper. Because even through the blood haze, the battle haze, whatever you want to call it, the feeling was so strong. And you know how I am in battle. I don’t feel anything but the fight. But this feeling, it penetrated through the haze. Nothing has ever done that before. It was the worst feeling, because I killed the man, but the best, because it told me that the story is true. Jeor, I’m one of them._

            _You need to stop this. Right now. Before you say something treasonous._

 _Who I am is not treason_.

            “He told you that you belonged with them.” Jeor held Mance’s gaze even as he braced himself against the back of the door so he wouldn’t sink hard onto his knees.

            “He said so in as many words.”

            “ _In as many words_. And what is _that_ supposed to mean?”

            “He told me that he liked me. That he’d seen me in other raids and that I’d be welcome among his people.”

            Jeor pressed his palms flat against the door. “An enemy man told you he fucking _liked_ you and you lowered your blade instead of _driving it through his fucking throat_.” He tried to snarl his voice but the words came out laced through with shock as his nails made indents in the wood behind him. “You idiot, Mance. You fucking idiot. He told you he liked you so that he’d have time to skewer you while you were distracted.”

            “Then why am I still alive?”

            _I won’t tell the Lord Commander about what you’re saying. You know I wouldn’t do that. But this isn’t healthy, Mance. You’re becoming obsessed and an obsession with anything but fighting is unhealthy for a ranger._

_I only became a ranger because they trained me to be one as soon as I was old enough. The man who remembered, you know who I mean, this man remembered the brothers who had brought me here when I was a child._

_You only talked to that man once before a wildling put an arrow through his eye._

_I talked to him many times. He only told me the story once, but it was enough. He said the brothers thought that I did such a good job of running from the other wildlings that they were impressed with me. That because it took five brothers most of the day to find me where I was hiding that they thought I was too smart to be a wildling and should be a sworn brother instead. So they took me back here. It makes perfect sense._

_It makes no sense at all. You’re the bastard of a brother and a whore from Mole’s Town. The Lord Commander used you. You were meant to be an example to the men of your father’s shame, bringing you here and parading you around. No one thought he was smart to do that. The Night’s Watch doesn’t raise children but no one was going to speak against the Lord Commander after he threatened every man who looked at you with disgust. I’ve hardly been here a year and I know this story through and through._

_Then you know that it’s ridiculous. More than half of the men here visit Mole’s Town. There are probably a hundred bastards born there every year. But none of them are taken back here. None. I’m supposed to be the exception? No. I was brought here because I was considered too dangerous to be a wildling. But that doesn’t make me less of one._

“You’re alive because you got lucky. This man was an even bigger idiot than you are and so he didn’t kill you when he had the chance.”

            “If he was an idiot, why was he sent with a raiding party?”

Jeor slammed his palms against the door and used the shock to propel him in front of Mance. Mance didn’t move except to tug his cloak closer.

            Jeor hissed. “Where did you get that cloak?”

            “I didn’t get it anywhere. It was already mine.”

            “That’s impossible and the weakest parry you’ve made yet. There is _no_ red fabric here.”

            “All of the black fabric was already mine. A great deal of it was shredded after the red man escaped. I was near Qhorin and the wildling that took the axe to him then went for me. I cut him down but not before he’d ripped through my cloak with the axe, trying to come up behind me. I killed him even though I knew it would stain me. It’s a stain I’ll always carry.”

            “How did the _red_ get in your cloak.”

            “When I woke up-”

            “Woke _up?_ ”

            “Why do you think I didn’t return?” Anger finally ignited behind his words and he pushed his face closer to Jeor’s. “The rangers thought I was dead or captured. When I woke up, I was lying under two bodies. My whole right temple was swollen. _Don’t you dare touch it,_ ” he spat as Jeor reflexively reached for his head. “Someone knocked me out. But I was alive. The next time I woke up, I wasn’t anywhere near where I’d fallen the first time. I was propped against a tree and there was broken snow next to me where someone had been sitting and a trail of footprints leading away from me. I tried to get up and run after them but I didn’t make it far before I fell down. But I saw the woman walking away from me. She was wrapped in furs like all the wildlings but she had red fabric in her hand. I called to her but she only pointed at the horse that was tied to the tree I’d been against. I hadn’t even noticed it. I was too far away to see her face. She kept pointing until I looked back at it again and when I turned to her again, she was further away and I had no hope of catching up with her. I went back to the tree and there was a flask of fresh water in the snow and fresh rabbit meat in a bundle of the red cloth. And when I finally walked to the horse, I saw my cloak blanketing its back. All of the tatters the axe had made were mended. Every single one.” He ran a hand smoothly over one of his cloaked arms. “She saved me. The red man sent her to find me and see if I was alive. And I was. And that is the only reason I’m back here right now.”

            Jeor’s eyes blurred and the red swam side to side in his vision. Mance was telling him something out of a fucking fairy tale. “No sense,” he whispered. “You make no sense. If your _people_ saved you, then why did you come back here at all?”

            Mance tilted his head again and there was a gleam in his eye. He didn’t smile but Jeor knew his eyes well enough to know when he was pleased. “It’s so simple. You can’t see it?”

            Jeor involuntarily recoiled his neck back. “Are you mocking me?”

            “Why would I do that? I don’t mock people. I’ve known I was different for so long. I’m a man who was brought up here. I’m a man who loves men. I’m a wildling man. And I came back here because now everyone here will know when I leave for good that I did it because I’m proud of who I am and who I come from.”

            Jeor backhanded him across the face as his heart exploded in pain. The cloak slipped from Mance’s shoulders as his body wrenched to the side. His fingers shot out to grasp the edges of the bed but he kept his head turned to the side, his breathing hard but his resolve harder.

            “‘Leave for good.’ Leave for _fucking good_. You’re never leaving here again. Never. I’m demoting you. I’ll show everyone your temple, tell them you got knocked on the head and I’ve declared you unfit for rangering. You will never go out of that gate again.”

            Mance’s eyes were watering. No doubt the blow Jeor had just given him had set his temple throbbing. He blinked and the tears of pain ran down his face but he didn’t turn his head back from the direction to which Jeor had hit it. “You won’t do that.”

            “Why not? I’m Lord Commander. I can _do anything I want._ ”

            “And you are also,” Mance said as the tears fell past his lips, “a man who would never hurt me.”

            “I just _hit_ you.”

            “You know what I mean. It has nothing to do with hitting me or kicking me or whatever it is you’re planning to do next. You will never hurt me. You love me too much.”

            _You’re in love with me, aren’t you?_

_Did I tell you I was?_

_I see it in your face. And even if I didn’t, I’d still feel it when you look at me. My instincts have never failed me._

Jeor pointed a finger near Mance’s chest. “You don’t get to tell me what I feel. Especially how I feel about you. And _especially_ after you’ve forfeited every right you’ve ever had here. If you leave, you’ll have deserted, and no man who deserts isn’t hunted down and killed if found. I’ll have you hunted.”

            Mance had that look of almost-smiling again as he turned his head and looked Jeor in the eyes with utter clarity. “I’m counting on it.”

            Jeor raised his hand again but Mance whipped out and caught his forearm. Jeor wrenched it back but Mance twisted it the opposite way and Jeor gasped in pain. He slammed his other hand down on the back of the hand Mance was gripping him with. He clawed his fingernails into Mance’s skin, beads of blood immediately rising along the lines of the scratches. Mance gave a frustrated noise along with his pained breath and kicked the toe of his boot hard into Jeor’s shin. Jeor’s hand flew from the top of Mance’s and Mance kicked his other shin. Jeor fell hard on the shoulder of his arm that Mance had twisted. He braced himself for Mance to kick him again but the blow never came. His breath came short and fast as he elbowed himself upwards, hurt and fury firing in his every nerve as he faced Mance again.

            Mance was still sitting upright on the edge of the bed, fingers braced against it. The blood on the back of his hand was smeared up his wrist and his jaw was clenched. He was in deep pain and his eyes were feverish but he met Jeor’s. Jeor tried for a look of hatred but Mance immediately scoffed at him. _How does he know everything just by_ feeling _it?_ Jeor wobbled as he stood up, his shins aching, but he braced his legs apart and stood in front of Mance.

            “Why did you stop?”

            “You hit me first. I was defending myself. I won.”

            “Hit me back.” The pain in Jeor’s body screamed at him to regret those words. _Idiot. He won’t do it_.

            “No,” said Mance simply, but his mouth crinkled slightly to the side, eyes lowering in amusement.

            _There’s no going back now._ “You had damn well better hit me.”

            “No.”

            “Hit me back or I’ll hit you again.”

            “You won’t hit me again.”

            Jeor made a strangled sound of frustration and felt tears prick behind his eyes. Not tears of physical pain, but tears from his shattering heart. “Hit me _fucking_ back or you’ll be sorry. You’ll be so sorry.”

            “No.”

            Jeor shoved him on the chest with both hands. Mance fell back immediately and made a small noise of pain but didn’t move to right himself. Jeor got on the bed and straddled him. The patched cloak was had fallen at askew angles behind Mance’s back, almost looking like wings.

 _Did we just fly?_ The first time they made love. _I think we flew. Are you in the sky?_

_No. I’m in your arms._

_You’re too literal, Jeor. Go with me here. I don’t know about you, but I’m rising in the air._

The tears were so hot on his cheeks. He’d felt too much heat the past day and he was burning through his fury faster than a wind storm blew. The shattered pieces of his heart that still managed to beat were being weighed down by powerlessness. He made a grab for the cloak but Mance caught his hand and pushed it away. He didn’t sink his nails into it like Jeor had done to his. Jeor reached for it again but Mance only pushed him away again and Jeor was done being pushed away and he laid his body, in all its pain, on top of Mance’s. He clutched Mance’s face and pressed their foreheads together.

            “Don’t go.”

            “I’m going.”

            “Will you miss me?”

            “Every day.”

            Jeor’s tears smeared against Mance’s face as he pressed their lips together. He pressed kiss after kiss to them and Mance received them all and gave them back, one hand on the back of Jeor’s neck.

            “Fucking hate you,” Jeor whispered as the salt of his tears got between their mouths. “Hate you. Don’t leave me.”

            “You don’t hate me.”

            “I love you.”

            “So it’s true.”

            “ _Fucking_ -” Jeor wrenched himself up and slapped at Mance’s cheek, hitting it once, twice. It was an empty-hearted attack and he let his hand fall, sinking his chest back down onto Mance’s. _Damn him. Damn that word “true.” I don’t want the truth._ “I’m staying in this room tonight.”

“You can’t.”

“ _Why?”_

“Because people will see you leave it instead of leaving your own room and then everyone will know about us. And you can’t have that. How would the men look at you then? It’s not the same as me leaving your room in secret because if anyone has ever seen me leave it, they’ll assume I was speaking to you in private. Plenty of rangers sit in your room to talk, after your study has been shut up. I’m no different in their eyes.”

“And why don’t you _want_ to be seen? You want everyone to know you’re a wildling. Why don’t you want them to know about _us_?”

“It won’t matter to me after I’m gone but you can tell everyone if you want. You’ll have to suffer the consequences. I’ll be too far away for them to reach me.”

“Don’t you love me?”

“Do you really want me to say that? Won’t it give you more pain?”

“Do you think I can’t handle any more pain tonight?”

“Fine then. Yes, I love you. I’ve loved you longer than you’ve probably loved me.”

“Then why are you leaving me?”

“I can’t be myself here.”

“I won’t punish you.”

“I can’t be _myself_ , Jeor. I can’t even love you openly. I don’t go to Mole’s Town with the other men. I never have and when they ask me why, I tell them the only satisfaction I need is knowing I do my job well. I’m so tired. I’m not free. You’re not free either. My people are free. I belong on free ground. It’s where I came from and it’s what I deserve. And I can’t be free in any way here. My people want me back. I know they do. I’m alive because they want me to be. I’m tired. I’m so tired. You don’t even know how much. I’ve been here _almost my whole life. I was stolen from my real life._ ”

Jeor tried to parry his words but no response came to him. He took Mance’s face in his hands again and swayed it side to side.

“You don’t know how much I’ll miss you.”

“Maybe I don’t.”

“Why do you always say the right thing? The thing I can’t argue with? _Damn you._ ” He rolled Mance onto his side as he kissed him again, throwing his leg over Mance’s. The pain in his shin groaned but he tangled his legs with Mance’s and kissed and kissed and kissed him. Mance threaded his hand through Jeor’s hair as Jeor kissed his cheeks, his forehead, his jaw, his neck, the hollow of his throat, the skin beneath it. He took his hands from Mance’s face and slid them under his shirt.

Mance’s skin was burning but Jeor only ran his hands faster over Mance’s ribs. Mance made a noise through his breathing and Jeor knew it was of pleasure. They’d done this too many times for him not to have memorized the noise. He grabbed at the laces of Mance’s shirt and leaned up long enough to pull it over his head. He kissed the pattern on Mance’s chest that they’d drawn together one night, experimenting, Mance saying yes or no to where the next kiss should be, his hand clapped over his mouth to his muffle both his laughter and his gasps of joy. Jeor kissed the pattern twice more as Mance stroked the back of Jeor’s neck, fingers shaking slightly. When Jeor’s mouth neared Mance’s hips, he tugged on the edges of his pants and Mance’s hand clasped harder around his neck. It was the _yes_ signal in their code, clear as ever.

Mance was already fully hard as Jeor licked from the base of his cock to the head with just the barest tip of his tongue. He didn’t need to look up to see how Mance was reacting to the tease. He knew that his eyes were closed and his mouth was forming words that were never given voice. Jeor ran his tongue lightly up and down the other side of Mance’s cock and Mance rolled his hips so far to the side that Jeor grabbed them to hold them still, swirling his thumbs on both his hipbones. He licked again with slightly more pressure and Mance thrust up. Jeor could feel Mance’s back arch higher as he closed his whole mouth around Mance’s cock and sucked up and down it, licking the head from side to side and slowly increasing his speed to tease Mance as much as possible before bringing him to the edge. Mance’s nails were denting into the back of Jeor’s neck but it wasn’t meant to hurt him. Jeor knew the grip too well, the sounds of Mance’s panting breath too well, the faster thrusts that asked for fulfillment. Mance was threading his other hand in and out of Jeor’s hair and Jeor timed the moment precisely: _three, two, one_ , and Mance jerked his hips one, two, three more times and came. The only thing he forgot to do was cover his mouth with his hand and Jeor heard him cry and gasp openly for the first time in all their life together.

Jeor didn’t wait for Mance’s breathing to soften or even out before he stood up and elbowed out of his shirt and unfastened his pants and was back by Mance’s side, facing him, fingers around Mance’s wrist. He guided Mance’s hand to his cock and Mance kept his other hand on the back of Jeor’s neck as he took Jeor’s cock in his fist. Jeor didn’t like to be teased, didn’t like build up, anticipation, holding out to the last moment. He didn’t have to say _rougher_ or _faster_ because Mance _knew_ what to do. He slid his fist up and down and thumbed the head, then brought his own fingers to his mouth, licked the tips, and pumped Jeor again. The feeling of Mance’s hand and his wet fingertips was better than any fire he’d ever sat in front of after weeks of being on a raid. It always had been. It always would be.

Pleasure spiked through his whole body, so strong and far-reaching that it was almost pain, the only pain that had ever felt good. Mance still cradled his neck as Jeor’s ecstasy ran higher and higher and he rolled his neck back and came hard and long. His mind blanked to nothingness as he bit into his hand to smother his keening. His breathing sounded like sobbing as Mance kept his hand on Jeor’s cock for another few moments. Apart from Mance’s open-mouthed sound as he’d come, they had danced the same dance that had always stirred Jeor’s soul as much as his body. Being with Mance, in bed or out, was the only way his heart had ever stopped holding in tension and had settled naturally into his entire body, each beat a second of truth, then another, then another. He shifted onto his side and Mance pressed the front of his body against Jeor’s back.

“You’re the only one who understands,” he whispered as he pulled Mance’s arm over his chest and kissed his hand, his fingers, his palm. “The only one who saw right through me, saw all my exposed nerves that I try so hard to keep covered. You just knew. I didn’t even have to tell you I didn’t really want to be Lord Commander. You were there when my name was volunteered, put forward because of all the good strategies I thought of. But I looked at you when they said my name and I saw the dread in your eyes because you knew how the job would pound my spirit into the ground. You lied, didn’t you? When you said you almost voted for Qhorin. You did vote for him, didn’t you? I don’t know why I didn’t realize that until now. It never even occurred to me to ask you and you never said anything but I’m the idiot here. You weren’t going to flaunt to me that you’d helped me. You knew that I knew you always helped me. Except that was the one time I didn’t know and you didn’t question whether I knew. I suppose I’d already tried so hard to force myself into accepting the title that it was unthinkable to go back and acknowledge that I’d ever been anyone but what I was now. And then I wasn’t allowed to be anxious any more. Not in front of anyone but you. You’d have made me anxious, telling me you’d not voted for me because you were worried I wouldn’t do well at the job. It was the one time your honesty wouldn’t have made me feel stronger and you knew that. So you trusted that I knew. And I didn’t. I’ve never trusted my instincts like you have. You’ve always been braver than me.”

He toyed with Mance’s hand, placing it over his heart and then kissing it again. Mance breathed softly into his hair. Jeor knew for certain this time that Mance was done speaking to him. They’d never speak again. He said the words anyway.

“I love you. Don’t ever let me catch you out there. Don’t ever. Live. At any cost, at _all_ cost, _live._ ”

***

            The cups rolled in the short blow of wind near the passed out boys’ faces. Jeor turned the boys onto their backs and one whimpered softly. Mance had drugged their tea just enough to knock them out for only half an hour. It would have been easy. Mance Rayder, missing and thought possibly dead, finally home from a horrific experience beyond the Wall, asking the cook for some herbs to help him sleep. He was addled in the mind from the experiences he’d had – he needn’t have come down to the kitchen _himself_ to ask for the herbs. And it was only kind to indulge him in asking for two cups instead of one. And there was no possible place he could have gone but back to the room that had been prepared for him. No one in their wildest dreams would have conceived of him walking out of the castle and to the gate and sharing his tea with the two boys on watch. Not odd that he was wearing that cloak with all the strange red cloth – he’d been holding on to it like a child with their favorite toy since he’d returned. Gods knew which wildling he’d stolen it from, but it seemed a treasure worth keeping as a trophy. And he had every right to be proud, to flaunt it. To wear it into the stables and visit the horse he’d ridden home on. He was a hero. Heroes didn’t drug watch boys and crank open the gates of the Wall and ride breakneck towards the far woods.

So he wasn’t a hero. He was a wildling sympathizer and a traitor. But no one could deny he was one of the best rangers at the Wall and perfectly capable of being long out of sight by the time the men inside woke dazedly to the sound of the gates rising.

Gates rising, of course, meant returned rangers or wildling attacks but there was no one in the courtyard except the two boys on the ground. No one had wanted to disturb Mance, though, a traumatized man who needed his rest. It was a bit strange when the Lord Commander came out of the room Mance had been in when the shouts went up that the gates were open, though. Very strange, actually. Something wasn’t quite right about that. His explanation was sound enough, though. No one could truly fault it. “It was my duty to check on him. I’d scheduled myself to do so. I’m not exempt from duty. I sat and talked with Mance when he woke up for a few moments in the night, gave him some tea that had been prepared for him as soon as he’d returned. He offered me a sip of the tea, just one sip, to help put me at ease from the exhaustion he said was lining my face. How could I have refused him? But it was enough for the turncloak bastard to knock me out and run. This is a lesson, men. For all of us. We’ll learn from it. _He’ll_ learn from it when we hunt him down. I’ve already sent out a party to track him. We’ll form another in the morning. We might not be safe right now. If he’s found the other wildlings already, he’s told them everything about this place, about each of us that he’s ever spoken to. We need ample men here to guard against an attack. It could come at any moment. It could be starting right now. None of you are free. Of your duties, that is.”

***

            “Go fast at me.”

            “Sir-”

            “Pretend I’m anyone else here. Pretend I’m not even a ranger. Pretend I’m a raw recruit who needs to be shown their place because they swung a sword once at home and think they know everything now. Go FAST at me.”

            Qhorin hadn’t waited for the younger man to attack before he was on him, the sword in his left hand catching a glint of morning sunlight as he furiously tried to pummel the other man to the ground.

            “He’s going too fast. He’s going to hurt himself.” Benjen thumbed his lip and winced as the young man managed a good parry back at Qhorin.

            “You can try to talk to him. You know him the best.” Jeor watched steadily as the young man slowly but surely gained an advantage over Qhorin.

            “I don’t like this. He’s going to hurt himself and it will be his fault.”

            “It will, indeed.”

            “ _CORN!”_ screamed the raven on Jeor’s shoulder.

            Qhorin had insisted he felt well enough to start training again a month after losing half of his hand. Was it exactly half of it? It depended on the angle you looked at it. No one was quite sure who had coined the “Halfhand” name but it had stuck to him like a second skin. But Qhorin had hissed such vitriol at the first boy who said it in his presence that it now existed as his name only in everyone’s minds. But “Qhorin Halfhand” had a certain, permanent ring to it. Jeor had no doubt everyone would use it behind his back. Everyone, Jeor not exempted. There were just some things that bonded everyone together.

            Shared hatred was a strong bond. The men were all united in their hate of Mance Rayder.

            “Yoren should be well on his way South now,” Jeor said as Qhorin dropped his sword in defeat and the young man apologized and Qhorin snapped at him for apologizing. “He’s the best recruiter we have. He’ll do well. We’ll catch Mance. Does that ease your mind at all?”

            “My mind is-”

            “No, you’re not at ease. Look at you. I could lay you flat as a board, you’re so stiff. I’ve never seen you so high-strung. What else is ailing you?”

            Benjen watched in clear aggravation as Qhorin picked up his sword again and aimed it at an even more experienced man than the first. “Everyone is on edge. I caught the feeling. When everyone else around you, quite literally _everyone_ , feels nervous, it takes a powerful will not to give into that. My will is not an exception.”

            “And Qhorin is probably going to hurt himself.”

            “Yes, and Qhorin is going to hurt himself.”

            “You do well by him, Benjen,” Jeor said, facing him, the raven clawing slightly into his shoulder as he turned. “Sometimes worry isn’t a bad thing. You should talk with him. If you don’t, I will.”

            Benjen swallowed and nodded. “Yes. We both should. Even you, my Lord.”

            “Yes.” Jeor sighed. “Even me.”

***

            “Why are we talking?”

            “The men are worried about you.”

            “Of course they are. But why are _we_ talking?” Qhorin tapped the fingers of his good hand on the arm of the chair. It was a habit he had developed, tapping his fingers on nearly every surface that was near him until someone saw him. Jeor saw him, and he stopped.

            “ _I’m_ worried about you, if you need to know. I indulged you today, letting you practice in the yard. I indulged all the men by allowing it. It keeps their spirits up, seeing you acting like nothing has happened. But if you get too reckless, if you hurt yourself, you’re going to hurt everyone.” Jeor leaned slightly on his desk and looked Qhorin square in the eyes. “Yes, that includes _me_.”

            Qhorin laid his left palm on the arm of the chair and screwed his mouth to one side in a strange smile before he spoke. “This isn’t about that, though, is it? You’ve been waiting for an excuse to talk to me alone in an official capacity. But we’re going to talk about very unofficial things, aren’t we? Yes, of course Benjen told me that you asked him lots of questions about me. It was the day Mance came back. Easy to remember it by that event. And Benjen is my best friend. He tells me everything that happens. You really didn’t think he’d keep your attempt to pry into my life before I was sent here at sixteen a secret, did you?”

            “Why were you sent here, Qhorin?” Jeor said it so simply that Qhorin’s mouth opened without words exiting it. Possibly the rarest sight at the Wall.

            _Stop it. Enough barbs._

            Qhorin closed his mouth and rolled his eyes. “This old talk. Everyone knows why. Even you. My father hated me. I was the youngest of five boys and I had no prospects and no ambition to have any. That was the key. If I’d been ambitious, I’d have been spared. But I wasn’t. I wanted to stay at home, where I felt comfortable. ‘I never want to leave home,’ I said and he hit me. He called me weak and a fool. So I wasn’t spared. I was a disgust and a disgrace. When Yoren came down to the Riverlands to do his roundup, my father practically lifted me into the cart full of criminals and the poor and the unwanted himself.”

            “So you were punished.”

            “Yes. I was punished.”

            “What was his name? The boy you left behind?”

            Qhorin blinked once, then swallowed ever so slightly. He cleared his face quickly. “Oh. We’re not playing games anymore.”

            “No. I’m done if you’re done.”

            “I never started. His name is Brynden Tully.”

            “Hoster Tully’s younger brother?”

            “The same.”

            “The love of your life?”

            “Forever.”

            “That explains his famous twenty-five rejected marriage proposals, the shame of House Tully, then.”

            “I wouldn’t have been angry.”

            “What?”

            “If he’d married. It means nothing. It won’t separate us. Distance has never separated us.”

            “You still believe that? After all these years?”

            “Yes.”

            “Without one doubt?”

            “Without one doubt.”

            Jeor blinked several more times than he meant to. He let his shoulders fall, not realizing he’d been tensing them. “I see. So you already know what I was going to tell you about myself.”

            “Of course. You’d have known it sooner about _me_ if you’d have heightened your senses for just one moment of the boring life you had before you and Mance became lovers, which I’m guessing wasn’t long after you arrived here, by how blind you were to that fact that we’re the same, you and me. Us and him. He numbed you in a different way. In a way that helped you cope. It tunneled your vision, but it was what sustained you. I understand. I do.”

            Jeor’s eyes had moved to a spot over Qhorin’s shoulder at Mance’s name and fixated themselves there at _lovers_. The heat inside him had sprung up like oiled kindling, burned his stomach into a roil of anxiety before his shred of stamina bloomed enough for him to meet Qhorin’s eyes again. His voice was quiet but he didn’t have the energy to match Qhorin’s steadier tone. “Why do you understand?”

            “Because you’re afraid of loss, like me. You lost Jorah. Even if you hadn’t, you’d still be afraid of it. I would read you like an open scroll every time Mance was within fifty feet of you, nevermind out ranging. You bit back at me the day before he came back. I wasn’t kind to you that day. I’m sorry about that. I mean it, truly. Even through this,” he nodded at his right hand, “I shouldn’t have baited you. Brynden wouldn’t have liked that. He’d have said he wouldn’t have recognized me in that moment. I know he would have said that. We’re a world away here but we still get news, even months later. During Robert’s Rebellion, we had ravens with all the names of the famous dead. That’s how I knew Benjen had lost his eldest brother and father even before Benjen came here. Do you think a heartbeat passed when I didn’t dread the raven that had Brynden’s name on its roster? Do you think I didn’t cry into my pillow like a child when the war ended and I didn’t have to live in agony that the love of my life had been killed? Do you think I don’t feel dread, even a little, sometimes, just in case a raven with news arrives and Brynden’s death has still occurred somehow? I feel the bond between Brynden and me with my every breath but I don’t have Green sight. I can’t know for sure he’s alive. I’m terrified in some way all the time. Just like you. Because I couldn’t bear it. I’d live but I’d be withered permanently. That’s the word Benjen used to describe me, yes? ‘Withered’? Something like that? I’m always withering. I keep myself strong enough to pass the days by knowing we’ll always be together, him and me, in souls. Because without him in body, I’m in pain. I’ve been in pain since I was sixteen. I know pain when I see it. I sense it like it’s the air I breathe. You’re a wreck right now. You’ll be a wreck as long as you love him. So I think we should drop the game, don’t you? The one I never started? It’s done, you said. So talk to me. Talk to me as yourself. Talk to me like you love him, which you do. No, I don’t mean right now.” Qhorin waved his left hand as Jeor moved his mouth weakly. “Another time. But it feels good to talk recklessly like this, doesn’t it? We can do that with each other. So let’s be friends. I’m miserable. So are you. We’ll survive by sharing that with each other. Yes?”

            “Yes.” Jeor breathed it more than said it. He felt faint from his head to his feet, like his blood weighed nothing, like he imagined the drugged watch boys had felt right before they hit the ground. “I might have to continue this with you another…”

            “I’ll go now. You look ill. Severely. I’ll have a cup of ale sent to you. Yes, I see you already have one. I’ll send another. It’s the least I can do. I did this to you. I didn’t mean to do it so fast. I’m sorry about that too.” Qhorin looked down. He said nothing for a minute, and then another, so Jeor said nothing either. They sat in silence and Jeor waited for his mind to anchor back to his body. He stomach was still convulsing with shock. _Why do you look so shocked? You thought I didn’t feel the same about you? That I don’t want you like you want me?_

            _I don’t think things that I can’t prove anymore, Mance._

            _Let me prove it to you. Stand closer to me_. _Closer. Take my hand._

            Jeor reached into his cloak pocket but it was empty. “Do you have a handkerchief?” he asked as tears grew in number by the moments.

            Qhorin stood up and pulled one from his cloak. He gave it to Jeor, who held it to his cheeks as he spoke while the tears moved hotly down. “Tomorrow might be a good time for another talk.”

            “Send for me. I’ll be in the yard, if you don’t forbid it.”

            “Just be careful. Don’t push yourself too hard. I’d be sorry to see you hurt again. I mean that.”

            “I know you do. I’m done for today. I overdid it, to be honest. I might fight with a target instead tomorrow. I can’t stop training again now that I’ve started. It’d demoralize everyone.”

            “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

            “Yes. Oh – the ravens you’re sending. If I can ask a favor. I know we’re new friends, but I have to ask. The raven that’s going to the Riverlands. Mention me in it by name. ‘Qhorin Halfhand.’ So that Brynden has news of me for the first time. Yes, it will be the first time. That’s why I was upset about that one vote. Benjen told me you talked about it with him. So yes, I wanted to be Lord Commander because it meant I would have gotten news of myself to Brynden before this. And my father – gods, what I wouldn’t have given to see his face. His disgraceful son elected Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. A living legend. But I never had a reason to ask a Lord Commander to mention me by name before. I know we’re not allowed to be mentioned by name because we’re not supposed to have identities here. But you’ll have an excuse to put my name in a letter, because I was there the last day Mance ever fought against his people. So mention me and call me that and Brynden will know I’m alive and my godsforsaken father will know I’m thought of as a hero now. That’s all I ask.”

            “You’ll have it.”

            “Thank you.” Qhorin rose and met Jeor’s eyes one more time. “Tomorrow. Call for me.”

            “I will.”

            When he’d gone, Jeor wiped his face quickly and cleared the set of his eyes. He waited for the boy whom Qhorin had sent to fetch more ale. He thanked the boy and dismissed him. When the boy’s footsteps had receded out of hearing, he sobbed until every inch of the handkerchief was soaked. He threw the wet cloth on his desk and buried his face in the fold of his cloak until he cried himself dry. Then he emptied the cup of ale and pushed the papers on his desk to one side. He laid his head on the wood, chest still rising and falling, rising and falling. The night Mance had left, Jeor had been lying on this side when he had fallen asleep in Mance’s bed. Somehow, Mance had pulled his red-patched cloak out from under Jeor without Jeor waking up. _Not that surprising. I’m not even a heavy sleeper but he knows my body well enough_. The same night, he’d dreamt again about Mance holding his hand out for snowflakes.

_Been here my whole life but they don’t get less pretty._

            Jeor leaned back up slowly and looked at the papers he’d shoved aside. _He wasn’t actually here his whole life. But I’ll be Lord Commander my whole life_. He moved a fresh sheet of paper in front of him and dipped his pen in ink.

            _Lord Commander Jeor Mormont is known by Qhorin Halfhand and likely Benjen Stark and possibly by suspicion of others to be in love with the so-called “turncloak” Mance Rayder, he lately of the Night’s Watch and now of the wildlings, his own people. Commander Mormont has several strategies for hunting Mance Rayder down and killing him for 1. Being a traitor and 2. A wildling with no doubt treacherous schemes. Commander Mormont has employed these strategies for the past month and will continue employing them, and improved strategies, if necessary, until the task has been carried out. Commander Mormont does not love Mance Rayder without one shred of his whole body and soul. He will love Mance Rayder until his life has ended. He will love him long after that. Mance Rayder’s red-patched cloak will never not have lain on Mance Rayder’s bed while the two of them made love on top of it. This message is addressed to no one and will be burnt in less than half a minute, but it will always have existed_.

            Jeor put down his pen, crumpled the paper, walked over to the fire, and threw the paper in. He watched it burn until every shred had been licked away. He wrote another message and burned it the next night, then the next, and then every night until he left Castle Black for the last time in his life.

**Author's Note:**

> I am indebted to Mance Rayder's ASOIAF wiki page (https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Mance_Rayder) for some elements in this story, including: "when Mance was a child, he was taken by the Night's Watch and raised as one of them," and "[Mance] was healed by a wildling woman. While he recuperated, she mended his torn cloak with swatches of red fabric."


End file.
